Now in its second year, we hosted a FREE symposium on the Future of the TV Writers Room with showrunners and writers:
Valerie Woods
(SWEET MAGNOLIAS, QUEEN SUGAR, and the recently announced COWBOYS OF CALIFORNIA series)
Niceole Levy
(FATE: THE WINX SAGA, CLOAK & DAGGER, S.W.A.T., and feature THE BANKER)
Sneha Koorse
(THE WITCHER, THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, THE AMERICANS)
Alexa Junge
(FRIENDS, THE WEST WING, GRACE AND FRANKIE)
Zoanne Clack
(GREY'S ANATOMY)
Dawn Prestwich
(Z: THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING, THE KILLING, MELROSE PLACE)
Jorge Rivera
(BETRAYED, Co-chair of the WGA Latino Writers Committee)
hosted by
Ken LaZebnik
(TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, PROVIDENCE, WHEN CALLS THE HEART, ARMY WIVES, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, and Director of the TV Writers Studio)
We covered the topics:
Zoom Beyond
Having lived through the pandemic year, what lessons do we carry into the future of the TV writers room? Does zoom have a place in our future? How does it impact our creative work? Who is advantaged by Zoom? Is it the writers or the studios? What are the implications of creating more international projects?
Breaking Stories
How do streaming networks and serialized storytelling affect how we break those stories? Has television become ten-hour movies, or is there a return to contained storytelling?
Let’s Get Independent
Presented with SeriesFest
What is the future of creating work for television independently? Is it possible to break out of the studio model in terms of development? We heard from independent television creators who are doing just that:
Matt Ferrucci is an award-winning director & writer whose dark comedy KENSINGTON won Best TV Pilot at the 2019 SOHO International Film Festival in New York and Best of Fest at the 2020 First Glance Film Festival. Matt wrote and directed for two seasons on the Comedy Central sketch show Triptank, directing Keegan Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Nat Faxon, Cheech Marin, and Pete Holmes, among others.
Bri Castellini is the Film Community Manager for Seed&Spark, a graduate-level adjunct professor for digital media, an independent filmmaker, who’s known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 149k views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In.
Shannon Goldman is the founder of Super G Films, a New York-based production company, who has directed, edited and produced several feature length films, many of which debuted at top film festivals and released to critical acclaim.
Jacqueline Pereda is a writer, producer, and comedian who wrote, directed and produced her half-hour comedic pilot, GENERATION POR QUÉ? which was a 2020 Official Selection at Seriesfest and is licensed by HBO and HBO Max to air in May 2021. Her comedy has appeared on TruTV, Funny or Die, Mas Mejor, WhoHaha, Brown Girl Magazine, the Women in Comedy Festival and Brooklyn Comedy Festival.
Liann Kaye is a Chinese American filmmaker based in NYC. For five years, she was the director of video for Global Citizen’s international music festivals, working with artists such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Coldplay, and Metallica. Her award-winning short "The Blessing" premiered at festivals across the country last year, winning "Best Comedy" at the New York Short Film Festival.
